Sentencing Reform in Israel: The Goldberg Committee Report

1998 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 591-643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Ohana
Keyword(s):  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal History ◽  
Public Confidence ◽  
Committee Report ◽  
Judicial Discretion ◽  
Sentencing Reform ◽  
Final Sentence ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Mitigating Circumstances

Sentencing reform has been the subject of much debate over the past two decades in North America, Europe and Australia. Among the concerns spurring this widespread reconsideration of sentencing principles and practices, there is the need to promote consistency in sentencing, the crisis in public confidence in the criminal justice system, and the constitutional argument for more legislative intervention in the area of sentencing. The reforms implemented in various jurisdictions to address these concerns have taken numerous forms: at the federal level in the United States, “base sentences” were assigned to each offense category, the final sentence being fixed in the light of the offender's prior criminal history and aggravating and mitigating circumstances; at the state level, several jurisdictions adopted a less detailed system of numerical guidelines, schematized by a two-dimensional grid of sentence ranges defined by classes of offenses and the offender's criminal record. Other jurisdictions, such as Canada, Britain and Sweden, eschewed the use of numerical guidelines as a vehicle to structure judicial discretion in favour of simpler statutory statements of principles in sentencing.

U.S. Immigration Policy in the Early 21st Century

2012 ◽  
pp. 93-102
Author(s):  
G. Nikol'skaya
Keyword(s):  
Immigration Policy ◽  
American History ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigration Reform ◽  
President Obama ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
New Immigrants ◽  
Significant Movement ◽  
The Subject

U.S. immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached 40 millions in 2010, the highest number in American history. Nearly 14 millions of new immigrants settled in the country from 2000 to 2010, making it the highest decade of immigration in American history. For the United States, the immigration has always been both crucial to the economic growth and a source of serious conflicts. There has been no significant movement toward federal immigration reform since bipartisan project blocked in 2007. But it has been the subject of fever legislation at a state level, and President Obama made a decision to return to this question in the coming presidential campaign.

Battles over US waterways policies are ahead

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Private Land ◽  
Weak State ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Agriculture Industry ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
Clean Air ◽  
The Subject

Significance Later this year, the Trump administration’s Navigable Waters Protection (NWP) rule comes into force, the subject of the group's concern. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalised the rule in late January. The rule redefines which US waters are protected under the 1972 Clean Water Act (CWA), and replaces the 2015 Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule. Legal challenges meant WOTUS was never implemented, but it still worried agriculture, industry and landowners as it potentially expanded federal anti-pollution oversight to previously unregulated waters and adjacent private land. The NWP is the latest effort in the Trump administration’s environmental deregulation drive affecting climate change, clean air, natural resources extraction, parklands and endangered species. Impacts The greatest beneficiaries of scrapping WOTUS are likely to be mining, construction and chemicals industries. Weak state-level enforcement could reduce wetlands protection by more than a return to pre-2015 levels that the NWP professes. More polluted US rivers could aggravate riparian disputes with Mexico.

Truth-In-Sentencing

Criminology ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian J. Ostrom ◽  
Charles W. Ostrom
Keyword(s):  
Criminal History ◽  
Sentence Length ◽  
Good Time ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sentencing Reform ◽  
Parole Board ◽  
Determinate Sentencing ◽  
Rehabilitation Potential ◽  
Final Sentence ◽  
Truth In Sentencing

Truth-in-sentencing (TIS) describes a range of justice system policies that eliminate discretionary parole release and significantly reduce good-time accrual rates in an attempt to make sentencing both more certain and transparent. TIS policies are most often proposed as a means for ensuring that the amount of time an offender actually serves in prison is closely aligned with the sentence originally imposed by the court—the court, the victim, and the public know how long the offender will be imprisoned. These policies follow several decades of shifting sentencing philosophies and practices: Indeterminate sentencing and powerful parole boards characterized the early 1970s; paroling authorities fell out of favor with the introduction of determinate sentencing models in the late 1970s; and sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences became commonplace during the 1980s. The adoption of TIS became one of the major objectives for sentencing reform at both federal and state levels in the 1990s. Generally, the model of TIS holds that sentencing authority rests with the court and that sentences should be served in full. Only modest reductions in sentence length based on satisfactory behavior while incarcerated are acceptable. Philosophically, TIS draws largely on a “just deserts” philosophy, in which sentences are fixed proportionally on offense seriousness and, to a lesser extent, on prior criminal history. This philosophy contrasts with indeterminate models that split authority over the final sentence between the court and some other entity, such as a parole board. In those systems, the court sentences the offender to a specific term, within a range, or to an unspecified period, and a parole body determines the actual release date—often based upon rehabilitation potential.

Exporting Murder: US Deportations and the Spread of Violence

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 316-328
Author(s):  
Christian Ambrosius ◽  
David A Leblang
Keyword(s):  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
State Level ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal History ◽  
Homicide Rates ◽  
Migrant Populations ◽  
Variable Approach ◽  
Forced Return

Abstract Existing literature on cross-national variation in violence has paid little attention to the transnational transmission of crime. One such channel is the forced return of migrants with a penal record in their country of temporary residence. Responding to this research gap, we study the effect of US deportations of convicts on levels of violent crime in deportees’ country of origin for a cross-country panel of up to 123 countries covering the years 2003 to 2014. We find a strong and robust effect of the deportation of convicts on homicide rates in countries of origin, which is to a large degree driven by deportations to Latin America and the Caribbean. An additional inflow of ten deportees with a prior criminal history per 100,000 increases expected homicide rates by roughly two. In addition to controlling for country-specific fixed effects, we provide evidence on a causal effect using an instrumental variable approach, which exploits spatial and time variation in migrant populations’ exposure to state-level immigration policies in the United States.

Statutory Sentencing Reform in Israel: Exploring the Sentencing Law of 2012

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian V Roberts ◽  
Oren Gazal-Ayal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
The United States ◽  
Judicial Discretion ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Sentencing Reform ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Sentencing Reforms ◽  
The Law

In 2012 the Knesset approved a new sentencing law. Israel thus became the latest jurisdiction to introduce statutory directions for courts to follow in sentencing. The approach of the United States to structuring judicial discretion often entails the use of a sentencing grid with presumptive sentencing ranges. In contrast, the Sentencing Act of Israel reflects a less prescriptive method: it provides guidance by words rather than numbers. Retributivism is clearly identified as the penal philosophy underpinning the new law, which takes a novel approach to promoting more proportionate sentencing. Courts are directed to construct an individualised proportionate sentencing range appropriate to the case in hand. Once this is established, the court then follows additional directions regarding factors and principles related to sentencing. Although other jurisdictions have placed the purposes and principles of sentencing on a statutory footing, this is the first such legislative declaration in Israel. The statute also contains a methodology to implement a proportional approach to sentencing as well as detailed guidance on sentencing factors. This article describes and explores the new Sentencing Act, making limited comparisons to sentencing reforms in other jurisdictions – principally England and Wales, New Zealand and the United States. In concluding, we speculate on the likely consequences of the law: will it achieve the goals of promoting more consistent and principled sentencing?

Review of the Saudi Anti-Sexual Harassment Law: Evolution and Challenges

Law and World ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-40
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
State Level ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
Jury Trials ◽  
Sexual Harassment Law ◽  
The Subject

Sexual harassment is one of the most debated issues in society. This is mainly because of its prevalence and effects both to the victims and other associated parties. It is a pervasive problem existing in almost every institution, organization and society. Despite its pervasiveness, it can also be elusive and in most cases go unnoticed with the victims suffering in silence. Considering its apparent yet complex nature, there has always been the consistent need to research and understand more about the subject of sexual harassment in an attempt to find effective strategies and solutions for its prevention. However, while it can be complicated and pervasive, sexual harassment is increasingly prevalent in the workplace. This may be due to several factors, including the complex nature that includes the different forms of it, such as verbal, non-verbal or physical sexual harassment nly 2% of roughly 80,000 persons charged with crimes in 2018 in federal court in the United States of America had their cases heard by juries of their peers. In those trials, 83% of defendants were convicted and 17% were acquitted. Approximately 90% of criminal cases are resolved by way of plea agreement and sentencing with only 8% dismissed.1 The percentages of jury trials and plea agreements are roughly the same at the state level. Civil cases are also tried by juries but are not the focus of this article.

Government and the Petroleum Industry of the United States to 1911

1950 ◽  
Vol 10 (S1) ◽  
pp. 82-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph W. Hidy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Petroleum Industry ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Petroleum Products ◽  
Short Paper ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Federal Authority ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Governmental Institutions

Any attempt to analyze fully this comprehensive and extremely complex subject would require at least a book, not a short paper. Businessmen in the American petroleum industry came face to face with governmental institutions in the United States on every plane from townships, counties, towns, and cities to states and the Federal authority. Since petroleum products entered into American trade with practically every national entity on the globe, producers, manufacturers, and marketers of oil were vitally affected by foreign legislation and administration of the laws in the various lands. No scholar has ventured as yet to investigate fully and evaluate carefully the historical relationship between government and oilmen on a local or state level, much less on a national or world-wide basis. This paper can only show the breadth of the subject and the size of the task presented to the historian.

scholarly journals Is Now the Time for Major Federal Sentencing Reform?

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 382-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Sun Beale
Keyword(s):  
Significant Variation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Judicial Discretion ◽  
Federal Sentencing ◽  
Sentencing Reform ◽  
Offender Characteristics ◽  
Federal Districts ◽  
Lower Severity ◽  
Fact Finding ◽  
Legislative Changes

Although some witnesses at the United States Sentencing Commission's February 2012 hearing advocated legislative changes designed to make the Guidelines more binding or mandatory, other witnesses (including the author) opposed those changes and testified that the system is working reasonably well. This essay argues that the Commission's data do not show a level of variance that should be regarded as troubling and provide no justification for legislative changes to reduce judicial discretion. The data do show an increase in below-guideline sentences and significant variation in the rate of below guideline-sentences in different federal districts and circuits. But these statistics do not demonstrate either unjustified disparity or the need for fundamental changes in the federal sentencing system. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) instructs the sentencing court to consider “the history and characteristics of the defendant,” and below-guideline sentences based on relevant offender characteristics are not unwarranted. Similarly, variations in the rate of below-guideline sentences are not presumptively unwarranted. They reflect a wide variety of factors, including significant differences in prosecutorial–not judicial–practices, to which sentencing judges may appropriately respond. The Commission also heard testimony advocating other legislative changes that would preserve judicial flexibility but lower severity levels, simplify the system, enhance the reliability of fact-finding, and insulate sentencing from Congressional micro-management. In short, there is no consensus on the kinds of change, if any, that should be made. This is not the time to invite Congress to overhaul the federal sentencing system.

Punitive ambiguity: State-level criminal record data quality in the era of widespread background screening

2021 ◽  
pp. 146247452198950
Author(s):  
David McElhattan
Keyword(s):  
Data Quality ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal History ◽  
Criminal Record ◽  
Criminal Records ◽  
The Social ◽  
Record Data ◽  
Penal State ◽  
Using Data

Prior research documents widespread deficiencies in the quality and completeness of official criminal records in the United States. In an era when the social reach of criminal records has expanded to an unprecedented degree, these deficiencies carry serious consequences for criminal record subjects. The present study develops the concept of punitive ambiguity to characterize the burdens of incomplete criminal records and examines how they vary at the state level, providing evidence that punitive ambiguity is racially patterned. Using data from the biennial Surveys of State Criminal History Information Systems, multivariate analyses find that states where African Americans make up larger shares of felony record populations report rap sheet dispositions at significantly lower levels, pairing low criminal record data quality with extensive legally-mandated background screening. The results carry implications for understanding the racialized burdens of a criminal record, as well as broader processes in the development of the American penal state that combine harsh formal punishments with chronic administrative neglect.

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